Of Darkness and Dust
by FoxQuill
Summary: In which Lizzie Brooks is not really Lizzie Brooks but she's on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar and darkness and dust have always been her friends. [ft. an OC that is not really an OC but actually Coulson because he doesn't have his own tag.]


Lizzie blinks in the light and aches for the shadows that she's been dragged from. The man in the suit looks down at her, unassumingly dangerous, and Lizzie stands and stares at him.

"Miss Brooks, I would like you to come with me please." The voice is American, but otherwise uninteresting. It matches his appearance.

"Who are you?"

He ignores the question.

"If you do not cooperate, we have ways of making you come with us. The more of a difficulty you present, the more drastic measure we will be required to take."

"Where do you want to take me?"

"I want to take you to a training facility where you can learn to maximise your potential and meet people who can assist you."

"And who I can assist."

"And whom you can assist, yes."

"You want to use me."

The suit inclines his head. That earns him a point; Lizzie doesn't like liars, and she knows when people are lying. She still doesn't intend on going with him, but there are no clear escapes for the moment. She can't see any dangers, but she also can't be sure that there's no one else. She doesn't trust the man, and there are plenty of hiding places along the street if someone doesn't want to be seen. The alleyway is just too far out of reach for her to hide back in the dark. The suit wouldn't stop her if she ran, but someone or something would, and Lizzie's smart enough and experienced enough to not want to find out what. She keeps her eyes locked on his, brain calculating the fastest way to get out of the light.

The road they're in is long, wide and open. Cars pass regularly but it's not busy, and even if it was, a man and a girl talking civilly on the side of the road is hardly a cause for concern. It's the middle of a sunny Thursday afternoon on a residential street, and even the people walking past don't give a second glance. If she could make it to the alley, if she could just get a little closer, she's safe.

"How much do you know about me?"

"Enough to know how dangerous you could be."

She's proud of that statement, but also vaguely offended. She's dangerous now, thank you very much. Anyway, they don't know too much, that was evident from the start, and — Lizzie surveys him critically — even if he knows about the darkness, she's only ever known two people here who knew, or who understood the other part of her that makes her different.

This man is different, however. He might not know, but Lizzie doesn't feel sure.

"Can I ask you to get back to me?" It's a risky shot, but Lizzie tries it anyway. The suit doesn't move for a few moments, but then the risk pays off.

"You have eighteen hours. Be here tomorrow or we will not be so diplomatic."

That's unexpected, and also very generous. It gives her until noon the next day, which gives her some time to work out how she's going to play it. She keeps eye contact, smiles slightly, and nods.

"Until tomorrow." The man holds out his hand, and Lizzie takes it, shaking firmly and steadily, refusing to give in. A corner of his lips twitches.

As he turns away, he mutters something and a flash of movement catches Lizzie's attention in her peripheral vision. A man darts out of sight, but he's already given away his hiding place: a hiding place that gave him a perfect vantage point over the alleyway. Lizzie smirks as the man in the suit walks off, and waits until he and another man duck into a sleek, black, forgettable car with an American number plate. Lizzie memorises it.

Once the American car disappears into the traffic, Lizzie runs the few feet back into the shadows of the alley, glad from the relief of the harsh light of day. A panther curls around her waist and she idly strokes the rough, black fur. He blinks up at her.

"How much did they know?" He asks. His voice rumbles low and growling and it rolls through his body and through Lizzie's arms and legs where the big cat is pressed against her.

"I don't know." Lizzie hates not knowing things. She pretends to know everything, but her education is limited at best. It's spotty and usually concerning things that didn't make sense in the modern world. Her father told her stories and took her travelling and taught her how to diagnose, heal, read and open doors that didn't exist. She knew how to write, she knew how to fight, she knew how to speak Italian, how to read people, how to spin stories and dance out of the way of danger—most of the time. That was all. Her dark skin helped her to hide, in the shadows and in the open; she was just another brown-faced kid on the streets, just another mixed-race kid who had fallen into a life of crime. People didn't have to explain her when they had their prejudices and stereotypes to do that for them. "Cal, they're coming back tomorrow."

Caleron's tail flicks and an ear twitches.

"We could leave here," he says.

"They said they'd find me."

"They can't follow us There."

That's true at least. Lizzie will never name it, a habit she got from her father, but even though he told her he was sure it was cursed, 'There' is still her favourite place to go, despite its near-emptiness. Sometimes she imagines she can feel the echoes of when her parents met for the first and the last time there. There were so many times in between, of course, but those are the moments that resonate the most strongly in Lizzie's bones.

She hasn't seen her mother since she was five. After ten years, all that is left is a dull impression of dark skin, a smile full of life and a polecat draped around strong but slight shoulders. Lizzie doesn't even have a photograph. She hopes her mother is alive, even if she only sees her once again.

Lizzie knows there is another place she can go to feel closer to both her parents, but it's the other side of London and she doesn't have the money for the train. She's too tired to get there any other way, and the autumn sun is beginning to dip slowly into pink.

Caleron growls and Lizzie's stomach echoes the sound. She sighs and bites down on her lip. It wouldn't be the first day she's gone to bed with a stomach stretched tight and empty like a drum, but it's been a week now since she gathered most of the apples from the crop of trees in a park a few roads over and the ache is becoming a stabbing pain. She grits her teeth and breaths through her nose, forcing herself upright. She can't do anything for at least two hours yet.

There's a twist of wires (the coat hanger kind) in one of the cardboard boxes by the electricity box and when night falls properly she grabs them and Caleron to dart into the night beyond the alley.

The house she takes the loaf of bread from is big and scattered with the latest technology. The small loaf she takes is one of three in the bread bin. This family won't go hungry without it.

She drinks water from the tap jutting out of the side of the building and let's Caleron lap from it the same. She can get water close to her alley, but it's nice to have some that she knows is at least relatively clean once in a while.

The bread tastes good and fresh and filling and Lizzie tears at it with relish once they return to their alley. Her stomach still growls, but it's weaker now, and not nearly as painful. It abates enough that she decides she can sleep. There's a tiny wooden shed at the bottom of the alley where there used to be a dog belonging to one of the buildings either side, and it's just big enough for a small bag, Caleron, Lizzie, and a wolfskin that Lizzie drags out from behind the cardboard boxes to keep them warm. Caleron's body heat does that well enough from behind, but there's no door, and the English weather is chill and cutting. Caleron curls in first, his body pushing the small bag that Lizzie keeps in there most of the time into the corner. Then Lizzie crawls inside and settles into the warm, firm heat and pressure of Caleron's side, feeling his ribs rise and fall with every breath. She drags in the skin next and fixes it over both their bodies with practised ease. Outside, the only light is a dim glow at the end of the alley from a streetlight. Lizzie closes her eyes and relaxes into the blackness.

The temperature has dropped the next morning. Lizzie clenches her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering and, when she crawls out of the whole they slept in, drags out a think fur coat from behind a pile of cardboard boxes and tugs it around herself, sitting down on a sturdy wooden box kept next to the shed-kennel. Caleron winds himself around the box and her legs and looks at her.

"What are we going to do when they come?"

"We're not leaving the alley this time. The shadows are safe."

"They know that. They're going to do everything they can to get you out again, just like they did yesterday."

"Yesterday we thought he was just a random commuter. Now we know he's with people who are up to something."

The church bells in the distance clang loudly, sending a lot of pigeons flurrying up into the ash-grey sky in a clamour of cawing and squawking.

"We could still go."

"We're still going to go. But I want to watch his face when we do. And we're not going There. Too boring to hideout for a year like you want to."

"What about Jordan?"

Lizzie frowns.

"They know something's up. The master was looking at us funny last time. Mrs Lonsdale was the only reason they didn't ask questions."

"She used to know mama."

"What?"

"It's true, Jannero told me." Caleron bares his teeth, the sharp fangs dull in the shadows of the alley.

Lizzie thinks of the elderly woman and her stolid retriever. "He said Mrs Lonsdale was the only one who could get her to do anything she was supposed to when mama was a kid."

"Mama sounds like she was cool when she was a kid."

Caleron's head is heavy in her lap and he's silent as Lizzie remembers the stories her father told her about a little black thundercloud waging war across colleges and towns and canals and fighting furiously against anything she didn't want. Sometimes when Lizzie imagines her mother as a child, she's tall and quiet, but sneaky. Other times, she's big and loud and brash and bossy and dark hair frizzes out from her face wildly as she shouts at her underlings. Sometimes she floats in a white limbo, and Lizzie doesn't know where she belongs or where she came from or where she went.

It's already late, and Lizzie shakes herself out of daydreams and drags herself down to the little store on the corner a couple of roads away from her alley. Caleron stays in the alley, and it tugs a little, but they'd already dealt with that when they were younger, so it doesn't hurt. It means that Lizzie can duck into the shop and greet the pot-bellied man with the red face and offer a couple of hours work before she leaves for good. He looks annoyed at losing a good worker, but he doesn't pass up the opportunity to make her count while she's still here, and by the time the church tolls half past eleven, he's smiling and grunting in the strangely friendly way he has, and pressing a wad of notes into her hand before telling her to keep safe, kid. Lizzie bites back the unexpected sadness and promises that she will, then stuffs the money into the drawstring purse tucked under the waistband of her trousers and leaves for the last time.

When she gets back to Caleron, it's quarter to twelve and Lizzie drags a wooden box from the back of the alley to the mouth, making sure it's still in the shadows, and perches on it with crossed legs. Calderon settles down beside her, completely invisible with his black fur in the darkness. Lizzie scratches between his ears and watches the road until the suit and his companions arrive.

The car itself may have been forgettable and indistinguishable from most of the traffic going past, but even if Lizzie hadn't memorised it, an American number plate on an English A-road is never invisible. Nevertheless, Lizzie continues to peer through the four lanes of traffic as though she couldn't tell that it was the same car that had just passed for the third time. When the suit finally walks up, she grins at him.

"Miss Brooks."

Lizzie's grin grows. Next to her Caleron bristles, and she lets her vision smudge so she can see the hunched form he's look at on the roof behind her. The man is in the same place as he was yesterday. Lizzie's grins even wider. The man in front of her blinks.

"Have you made your decision?"

"If you know as much as you say you do, you know that I have."

"Miss Brooks, you're making a mista—"

Lizzie's hand finds Caleron's coat and they melt into the shadows.


End file.
